I was delighted to take part yesterday in a workshop with local authors and teachers on writing and the Common Core State Standards sponsored by the East Bay Educational Collaborative and the Association of Rhode Island Authors (ARIA). As part of the preparation for that workshop, Karen (who has her M.S. Ed. in Reading and Literacy) put together a study guide for high school teachers for my most recent short story, "Umbrella Men," with assignments aligned to the CCSS. I showed the materials to teachers at the workshop and got some good feedback.

To try to make this a helpful package for educators, I've created a printable PDF of the story with line numbers to facilitate reference, and a educator's epub version to make it easy to download and read (which could also be used by students, if you don't care about the numbering.)

It's all available for free under a Creative Commons license over on a new page for educational materials. If you're an educator, and have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Oh, and if you want a chance to meet some of Rhode Island's great local writers and check out their work, ARIA hosting the second annual Authors Expo on November 8 — more info on the web site.